We recently sat down with photographer Jennie Baptiste whose work is part of a new exhibition at the V&A museum and the Black Cultural Archives. Jennie told us about her current work in the new Staying Power exhibition, how she first got into photography and some advice for budding photographers out there!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Black Ballad: Thank you so much for your time. We are very excited about your new exhibition. Firstly, how did you get into photography?
Jennie Baptiste: It came about by accident really. I started at school while I was doing my GCSEs. I was resitting some GCSEs as well as doing my A levels. There was a dark room and a photography studio and about five of us students asked if we could have a go and use the dark room. There was an art teacher who knew a bit about photography, so she supervised us and taught us Photography GCSE and within a year I really got hooked on it.
BB: More than ever, thanks to camera phones and the internet's ability to allow easy publishing, everyone is becoming a photographer of sorts. What are your thoughts on this new phenomenon?
JB: It's great that everyone is able to explore their own creativity and in terms of smartphones, photography becomes that much more accessible and you are able to reach a wider audience. On the downside of things, when I was coming through, people still bought music magazines and for me that's how I got my work because I was able to work for magazines. Artist management would see my work in the magazines and I would get commissioned from that. Magazines played a big part in terms of giving me my breakthrough. One of the first publications I did was for Touch magazine and that's no longer around and I did that when I was a student. I have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to print.